Thomas S. Murphy

Thomas S. Murphy is an American broadcasting executive who served as chairman and chief executive officer of Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. until 1996. He is best known for engineering the 1985 acquisition of the American Broadcasting Company for $3.5 billion, transforming Capital Cities from a small broadcasting company into a major media conglomerate, and later overseeing the $19 billion sale of Capital Cities/ABC to The Walt Disney Company in 1995. Murphy began his broadcasting career in 1954 managing a small Albany, New York television and radio station and built Capital Cities over decades into a multibillion-dollar international media company. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2008 alongside his longtime colleague Daniel B. Burke.